The Spot: Stories

Back at the forge the idea was to do a point-by-point analysis and to tweeze apart the boiling chaos, the plumes of blood, the rattle of the tommy gun until it jammed, the inaudible pleas that had draped around us, unheard in the roar. Idea was to find the exact point at which the potential for a botch (hidden in that stalemate between the Old Order Mennonite and Donnie) was somehow nudged over into a genuine bloodbath. Idea was to put aside the residual urgency of the aftermath — the gunmetal tartness on the tongue, the old iron stench of the forge, our sweat-caked shirts — and find something instructive in the mess, the educational moment, so to speak. Otherwise, it was just one more smear of carnage on the floor of one more Ohio bank. Otherwise, it was simply three men going into a rage and spilling blood. To break down the scenario, in retrospect, and to figure out just where the human element had slipped in to ruin what otherwise — up to that moment — had been a purely mechanistic situation: everything moving smoothly along the grand traditions. In most cases — Donnie was saying — you could shave it down to a single moment, freeze-frame it to the precise second just before all hell broke loose, and in doing so locate the blame in one of the following:

A human failing. Nothing too big, nothing tragic, but some little error on our part. A sudden distraction in the form of a lament for a lost lover, or a stray thought. Some preheist factor, unnoticed before the chain of events began. A second cup of coffee that led to a poorly aimed shot, or a jittery trigger finger. (Good aim requires at least one dose of caffeine. Too much caffeine and you’re likely to succumb to the urge, so to speak.)

Some impromptu gesture, Ohio-related. Some improvised response to a gesture on the part of one of the customers — throwing the plan off for a fraction of a second.

We drew a blank that night, with the rain drumming down on the tin roof of the forge. We simply could not find the exact cause. Both of us had shot the Old Order Mennonite, we agreed, at about the same instant, arriving at a mutual conclusion and acting on our instincts in the same manner, and that seemed enough to justify what we did and to set it aside as the actual cause of the botch. We’d drawn from the same visual cues and responded to the best of our abilities swiftly and without too much thought.

In the end — after a lot of mulling, a lot of cigar smoke and pondering — we agreed that the botch might’ve been caused by some outside factor. Just one of those things. Just another afternoon heist gone bad. We shook hands and gave the forge one last slap for good luck and stepped out into the rain and went our separate ways: Carson headed north toward home; Donnie headed south to Florida; I drove west, staring hard through the swap of the wiper blades, shaking myself awake, doing my best to fend off the desire — and it was a strong one — to return to the bank.

Idea was to go back into the heart of that sad scene, to make an end run around fate by entering into the expectations of the law-enforcement officials (who knew in turn that we in turn knew that they had this expectation), because it was a given that at least one gang member would come stumbling back to the scene of the botch, the brim of his hat pulled low, keeping what he thought was a discreet distance from the scene, lurking in the shadows — so to speak — and holding himself in compliance with the traditions, scapegoating himself to regain some higher sense of order that had been lost in the maelstrom of the botch itself. Just thinking about it was a retreat into vanity. But the impulse was pure and hard. I wanted another shot at the Old Order Mennonite, a chance to fire a few seconds later, deeper into the unfolding drama, to shake loose the image of the woman on the street, who was probably now in bed, I thought, sleeping soundly next to her husband, while in the bowels of the house — nothing less than a big Queen Anne Victorian — a screw rotated, drawing coal into the maw of the fire, keeping them warm and cozy against the chilly night. It was the kind of house a guy like me could only dream about, financed on war loot, backroom deals, and countless bootleg runs. In that house — I imagined, staring out through the rain and dark, trying to keep myself on the road — she slept the deep doze of an innocent. When she woke the next morning she’d go out into her life, sashaying those fine hips, flashing those fine ankles, released from the burden of the truth, never knowing that in the simple act of walking down the street yesterday, she had triggered a dismal botch, a massacre of epic proportions. No: In the morning she’d stretch her arms over her head and yawn, smelling the bacon and coffee downstairs, arching the delicate bones of her shoulders, dreamingly rubbing the sleep from her eyes.